Oplex
Oplex was a class M planet which is the homeworld of the non-humanoid Oplexian race. It was notable for being one of the few class M planets to have no obvious influence from the Preservers or any similar ancient super-race, yet despite this its biosphere still showed signs of convergent evolution with life on other worlds. As a result, it was invaluable to biologists throughout the Alpha and Beta Quadrants who were studying evolution; thanks to the influence of ancient super-races, before the discovery of Oplex biologists functionally only had one highly repetitive and likely very tainted example of natural evolution on a class M planet. As the native Oplexian race had not yet achieved warp technology in the 24th century, and also partially because they were not a humanoid species and therefore were potentially full of surprises that could not be tainted, in accordance with the Prime Directive--and the good judgement of scientists who were from planets and powers which did not have similar rules--research performed on the planet has been discreet as to not disrupt their development. Biosphere In the 24th century, when Oplex was first discovered by the Federation, the planet had a variety of fauna and flora unique from the types typically found on other worlds. Oplex had two animal kingdoms and three major plant kingdoms. Plants Oplex's three major plant kingdoms were the cyan flora, the red reef flora, and the volcanic violetworts. Early in Oplex's history, when the world was still dominated by volcanoes, violetworts--feeding on the sulfur produced--became the first multicellular organisms on the planet. However, as the planet aged, volcanic regions shrank and other phototrophs arose which were more efficient. The violetworts managed to survive the eons of competition, however, and were still common in volcanic regions in the 24th century. The cyan flora were the most recognizably plant-like flora on Oplex. Aside from having pigment more cyan than green, they were greatly convergent with the green plants of other worlds; this seemed to indicate that even without influence from the Preservers, land plants will still take on familiar shapes simply because it is what works best. The red reef flora were one of the two dominant reef-builders in the 24th century. Though once more diverse, all extant species were plate-like with protective shells made of silicone resin. They were closely related to the secondary animal kingdom, containing the same silicon-based photosynthesizing organelles; aquatic secondary animals commonly feed on the red reefs, as they were a good source of silicon while being poisonous to everything else. Animals Oplex had 2 animal kingdoms, which were not particularly closely related to one another. The primary animal kingdom contains the majority of fauna, which filled similar niches to animals of other class M worlds; the secondary animal kingdom, on the other hand, mainly filled the roles primarily taken by fungi on other worlds. Within the primary animal kingdom, the majority of motile fauna were biradial, unlike other worlds where bilateral fauna were dominant. Throughout geologic time, the primary animals were the most common dominant rulers of megafaunal niches; on land, megafaunal lineages had a clear trend of developing bilateral symmetry so that they could better support their weight, but biradial body plans continued to be favored in water and in smaller faunal niches. A subgroup of brachiopod-like primary animals were one of the two primary reef-builders on Oplex in the 24th century. The secondary animal kingdom was completely unlike anything known from other worlds. Despite being carbon-based, they had some organelles derived from silicon-based microbes, and they spent a significant portion of their life as unicellular organisms acting as general decomposers and even gut microbes. When conditions became unfavorable, some cells would transform into red, phototrophic, multicellular animal-mushroom bodies. These would compete with others in their environment, sometimes even consuming their neighbors, to reach full size; they avoided competition with the cyan trees simply by absorbing different wavelengths of light. At full size, they would break free of their umbilical cord-like stalk, taking on the shape of a young animal which would then disperse, grow up, and reproduce to spread the species elsewhere. Terrestrial species were largely bilateral, and had occasionally taken on megafaunal niches on island continents; however, their ability to become megafauna was restricted due to their reproductive method leaving them exposed to herbivores and because of their dependency on silicon to power their silicon-based organelles--as long as members of the primary animal kingdom were present, the secondary animal kingdom was too inefficient to compete and thus remained small. In aquatic environments, due to the presence of red reef flora which were poisonous to everything else, secondary animals were often able to reach much larger sizes. Megafauna In the 24th century, Oplex's most common megafauna were a segmented, many-limbed subgroup of the primary animal kingdom which, though highly convergent with the vertebrates found on other class M planets, ancestrally had a millipede-like body plan. They all had a biradial life stage and would undergo metamorphosis into a bilateral body plan; some subgroups, especially those with large species with more active lifestyles, underwent metamorphosis during their fetal stage and were thus born or hatched bilateral. Two subgroups further fill most niches above the size of a cat; one is a hexapodal, endothermic group with complex rake-shaped filamentous integument, while the other is mesothermic, many-legged, and has simpler hair-like integument.